Mouse Count

We are working on counting this week and we love the little mice in Ellen Stoll Walsh's books. To retell Mouse Count, we needed ten mice, a snake, and a jar. I drew the mice myself and they are pretty pathetic but they served their purpose. C and R helped make the snake. I drew the outline on blue construction paper, and cut out stripes from yellow and green construction paper. C and R glued the stripes onto the snake before I cut it out - it was easier to do it this way because the stripes were long and I didn't have to cut them down to the perfect size. I just cut out the snake after the stripes were all in place. We followed the pattern of stripes from the book - blue, green, blue, yellow. This was a great opportunity to talk about patterns. C drew the eye on the snake. I gave C and R five mice each and they took turns with the snake.

In the book, the hungry snake finds mice and puts them in the jar with the intention of eating them once he has enough. C and R took turns putting the mice in the jar. We counted the mice as they added them to the jar.

The clever little mice trick the snake and, without giving away the ending, we had an opportunity to count backwards from ten.

We love this book and had a lot of fun practicing counting with the mice. I only wish I had laminated the snake (I was too anxious to get started and I haven't figured out how to use my laminating machineyet) because he didn't survive past our third retelling of Mouse Count. Oh well, we will make another snake and revisit that pattern.